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A complementary approach for investigating the molecular mechanisms of capillary blood vessel formation might be the identification of genes whose inappropriate expression results in the subversion of the normal morphogenetic program of endothelial cells. It has been shown recently that transgenic and chimeric mice expressing the polyoma virus middle T (mT) oncogene develop endothelial tumors (Bautch et al., 1987; Williams et al., 1988). In particular, chimeric embryos containing embryonal stem cells that express functional mT have been reported to develop multiple cavernous hemangiomas (ie, large endothelial cell-lined cyst-like cavities) at midgestation. Furthermore, infection of newborn and adult mice with a retrovirus carrying the mT oncogene resulted in the rapid formation of cavernous hemangiomas (Williams et al., 1988). The hemangiomas induced in chimeras and young mice have provided a …